10/12/12

More "Friends of Michael Grimm"?

According to the New York Times, When Republican Congressional Representative Michael Grimm left the FBI in 2006, he opened a Manhattan restaurant with businessman Bennett Orfaly, who Brooklyn federal prosecutor Anthony Capozzolo says has ties to Gambino crime family member Anthony (Fat Tony) Morelli.

Convicted in a complex tax fraud case, Morelli is "away" for 20 years.

Capozzolo's allegations against Orfaly came out at a bail hearing last month for former Grimm campaign fundraiser Ofer Biton, charged with immigration fraud and under investigation in a campaign finance case that rose out of Grimm's 2010 campaign.

At the hearing, Capozzolo painted Orfaly -- who put up $30,000 in cash plus assets to spring Biton on a $1.5 million bond -- as a friend and associate of Morelli and his wife Mary Ann.

According to Brooklyn Daily, Capozzolo also raised Biton's unindicted role in a 2002 drug investigation involving party drug ecstasy at the bail hearing. During a search of Biton's home during that investigation, the feds seized a loaded handgun and papers bearing Biton's alias, Haim Morzaine.